Cluster (novels)

The third and most common method of colonist travel is via lifeships, slower but safer multigenerational vessels that may take centuries to reach their destination.

Anthony first conceived of the Cluster series when writing But What of Earth?, a speculative novel in which the government discovers the secret of mattermission, making interstellar colonization feasible.

The Cluster series takes place roughly 500 years further in the future and is in continuity with Anthony's original manuscript of Earth?, published in an annotated edition by Tor Books in 1989.

The Cluster series is not necessarily consistent with the first published version of Earth?, the heavily reworked 1976 Laser Books edition credited to Anthony and Robert Coulson as collaborators.

His three-volume Tarot series featured Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision, a major supporting character in Earth?, and is set some years after that earlier novel.

Knyfh proposes to give Sphere Sol the secret of transfer—the ability to transfer an individual's Kirlian aura (and thus his entire mind and personality) into another "host".

Upon discovery and investigation of an archaeological site of the Ancients in the Pleiades, Flint and a group of other non-Sol entities recover the information that will allow them also to detect and trace transfers, giving them parity with Andromeda.

Choosing to leave things as they are, with parity between their two galaxies, Flint and the Andromedan mate and remain together until their auras fade (which happens rapidly since their physical bodies have been destroyed).

This has enabled Andromeda to secretly infiltrate the highest levels of government in Sphere Sol and its allies and resurrect its plot to steal the energy of the Milky Way.

Melody, hosted in the young and beautiful body of Yael of Dragon, must like her ancestor Flint find a way to defeat the Andromedan threat and save the galaxy.

As Kirlian Quest opens, a new threat has appeared on the horizon: the Space Amoeba, a fleet of alien ships one million strong, whose intentions are definitely hostile.

Herald the Healer, aural (but not literal) descendant of Flint and Melody, who is a / of Andromeda, has the chance to redeem his species' honor and save the galaxy, but in order to do so he must solve the riddle of the Space Amoeba and of the Ancients themselves.

Viscous Circle is a story about a strange and inhuman race of beings and an experimental attempt to transfer into creatures that seem only slightly sapient.

They are ultimate pacifists that take the form of magnetic disks that float through space and simply demagnetize and destroy themselves when faced with an unpleasant thought.